


In My Place

by skyline



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-12
Updated: 2010-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uther was raging at the heavens.</p>
<p>Now the heavens were raging back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Place

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for one of those drabble fic memes on LJ, where you set your iPod on shuffle and write fic with a word count that matches song length? Yeaaah. I wasn't going to post these here, but by special request: tada!

Everyone said Uther was a cold man. They claimed he didn’t feel, not even for his son, the charming Prince Arthur. The golden boy of Camelot. Some people even whispered in the night that King Uther didn’t have a _soul_. 

Which was nonsense. It was easy to see when Uther watched Arthur in tournaments, or when he worried over his return from patrols that he cared for the boy. He cared so much that if anything were to happen to Arthur, well, it could potentially break him. Sorcerers and magical beasts counted on the idea that it would.

Although, really, warm and fuzzy feelings toward his progeny were all well and good, but they didn’t do much for the citizens of Camelot. Even if the king was not soulless, he was not a kind man. It was suggested that he wasn’t even a _good_ man, or noble.

The tragedy of that being that once upon a time, he had been.

His coronation had been celebrated. People had predicted he’d lead Camelot into an age of glory and peace. And he did, for a time. He was always hard, stern, but when he danced with his queen at banquets, he glowed with potential and power. He glowed with the knowledge that he was the best ruler Camelot had ever seen.

It was said the death of his wife drove him to madness, and the parts of Uther that had allowed softness and honor and fairness hardened into marble. He became immovable. He became feared, all in the name of love.

That was the part nobody could abide. People killed for love, all the time. In tournaments and to protect loved ones from bandits and sometimes just to be allowed to love in peace. But Uther wasn’t just killing; he wouldn’t be satisfied with the death of a single person. He wanted to murder a race, a way of life. He wanted to wipe the very power that had brought about the queen’s death off the face of Camelot. Uther was raging at the heavens.

Now the heavens were raging back.


End file.
